One of the things I hate the most about myself is that I can talk all I want about how horrible it is that people are dying on the other side of the world, and then just go on with my day doing nothing about it. I’ll retweet some things, like some statuses, and think, “Okay, I guess I did my part. What more can I even do, anyway?”

I like to think I’m not ignorant. I like to think I’m not one of those people who are so numb to the violence. But the fact of the matter is, I am. I really don’t know what’s happening on the other side of the world. I feel like, as a Muslim, I should know what’s happening in Syria, and Palestine, and Afghanistan and every other “Muslim” country out there. I don’t know anything. I don’t keep up with it. I only know what shows up in my twitter feed and that’s not a particularly reliable source. And there’s so much happening. People are dying. People have been dying. And I’m sitting here in my little American bubble of ignorance thinking everything is fine.

I think that’s the problem with being American. We’re so removed from everything. Everything is all the way over there. And I know it’s not just me. All the other Muslim kids in my Middle Eastern Literature class have no idea what’s going on either. No one knows what’s up with Palestine, or Iran, or Syria, or anywhere else. We’re all clueless. As much it’s heartbreaking to see photos of all these people dying on the news every day I’ve become so numb to it. I expect it. And I hate that.

There’s just this overwhelming feeling of Well, what the hell can I do about anything? And I really don’t know. They always say “use your voice.” What voice? I don’t think I have a voice. All of my twitter followers are bots, 3 people read this blog, and it’s not like I can get anyone to listen to me in real life. I don’t have a compelling story to tell, I don’t have any connections to these things. And they way they teach us about it in school, they way they talk about these people on the news, they make the problem seem so far away. As if these people are on some other planet and we’re just helpless observers. And then all of a sudden they aren’t even people anymore. They’re just numbers.

And you wonder how can any of this even be real? It seems so unreal. And to think that I have any power at all to help these people, in such horrible circumstances that I can’t even begin to imagine in my worst nightmares? Yeah right. What can I do?

I see people organize fund raisers and donation drives and think, How the hell did you do that? Where do you even start with those things? I mean, yeah, it’s totally possible to do something big like that, but not all of us can do it. (But like, God bless those of us that do.) But it seems to me that something we can do -especially as privileged Americans- is throw money at things. That’s the one thing you can count on when you don’t know how to help out: There will always be a gofundme for everything.

I’m trying to be better human being. The world sucks so much and I want to be able to say I did something, anything, to make it a little bit better. So, for now, this is the best I can come up with. If I ever find out what the next step is, I’ll be sure to let you know.

And if someone actually reads this and has a charity they want to add to this list, let me know. These are just off the top of my head.

Moral of the story: Sometimes we can’t do much, but we gotta do something, right?